Afton sits in a bend of the Susquehanna with hills leaning in from both sides, and the hollows keep their own hours for fog and frost. Nelson Tree Services works those hillsides and farm lanes: tree removal where a big ash by the barn has given up, tree trimming and pruning to keep roadside maples out of the lines. Ice is the local event — it arrives in February, silvers the whole valley, and then the cracking starts, so storm damage cleanup is limbs off the driveway at first light. Care shows in the small things here, a limb roped down instead of dropped, chips swept out of the grass and into the bed. Afton, Bainbridge, Nineveh, Harpursville and the Chenango County back roads make up the territory.